Efficient communication has long been recognized to be important to successful office management. An ability to quickly and efficiently route hard-copy documents is an integral part of efficient communication, and therefore of efficient office management. The need for routing documents has led to the development of several sorts of routing carrier systems.
A desirable characteristic for a routing carrier for hard-copy documents is that the carrier obscure the document or documents transmitted to provide a measure of privacy, a requirement easily met by constructing the carrier of an opaque or semi-opaque material, like relatively heavy paper or light cardboard. Perhaps the best known document routing carrier of this type in the art is the familiar kraft paper envelope with a button-and-string closure. Carriers of this sort have been in use in office environments for many years.
The need for privacy, however, leads to a common problem for such routing carriers, that the name and location of the intended recipient of the document or documents is hidden as well. That is, if a memo or letter has an address or other routing information on the cover or first page, the address will not be seen once the document is placed in the carrier.
The conventional solution for the problem of obliterating any routing information by placing a document in a substantially opaque carrier, is to provide space on an outside surface of the carrier for an address or other routing information. Typically one or both sides of such a carrier will have sequential columns of lines upon which one is expected to write routing for the carrier. Frequently there will be more than one column, depending on the building and departmental structure of an organization. For example, there may be in one row, a position for a person's name, another for a building or plant no., and another for a department.
There are several distinct problems that arise from having routing address positions on a carrier. One is that the space for addressing positions is limited to the area of the sides of the carrier, such as the front and the back of manila envelope. This characteristic severely limits the useful life of the carrier. When one has used the last address space, the carrier is no longer usable, and is typically discarded. Although such carriers are not individually expensive, providing large numbers for a relatively large organization, in view of early obsolescence, can be quite costly.
Another problem with conventional carriers is that it is desirable in many environments to provide other indicia on a carrier than the routing information. For example, an organization might wish to have easily distinguishable carriers for different purposes. There might be one set for "secret" messages, another for highest priority messages, and a third for lower priority. The different purposes may be as varied, for example, as the several different kinds of mail provided by the United States Post Office.
The area of a carrier used for indicia other than routing information is not available for routing information, and the life expectancy of such a carrier depends on the number of routing spaces made available. Competition for space, then, may further limit the life of a carrier.
Still another problem with carriers of the sort with address spaces on the outer surfaces of the carrier, is that it takes time to address the carrier.
Inter-office mail, which is the essential nature of the document handling operations described above, is only one sort of document routing and delivery service. Another, and somewhat unique requirement for document carriers in many office environments is in the area of sending and receiving facsimile messages.
In an office involving no more than a few people and a relatively small work area, sending and receiving faxes is a relatively straightforward process. Each worker typically goes to the fax machine and sends and receives his/her own documents, and there is no need for a carrier system. Even in this straightforward atmosphere, however, there are often delays and errors, because there is no particularly recognizable way to discern a received facsimile document or a document to be forwarded by facsimile from a lot of other papers that might be laying about. There is also little privacy afforded by such an unstructured approach.
In more extended office environments, where there are relatively large numbers of workers sharing limited facilities, it is more common for hard-copy fax documents to be routed to a fax facility and handled by a person whose job description includes sending and receiving fax messages. In this kind of environment, it is easy for documents to get misdirected, misplaced, and even lost, unless there is some organized way for documents to be routed.
Fax messages, of course, have some rather unique characteristics, and a carrier system should distinguish. For example, most documents one might wish to send to a relatively remote recipient by fax, carry no distinguishing characteristic identifying the sender's intentions. This is the reason for the well-known fax cover sheet, used by most individuals and organizations that send and receive faxes.
Even with a fax cover sheet, however, a common document carrier, such as that described for inter-office mail, doesn't distinguish whether the enclosed documents are going to a fax or coming from a fax. The distinction is perhaps most important not in transit, but at the fax facility and at the user's desk.
What is clearly needed is a document routing carrier that provides ample space for indicia of various sorts, and is yet not limited in useful life by space for routing information. Such a carrier system should provide for distinguishing according to several types of priorities and purposes, and should, in application to the unique nature of fax documents, provide a clear indication of whether documents enclosed are to be sent by fax or have in fact been received by fax, as well as providing routing information, without limiting the useful life of the carrier.